


Order

by Hypsidium



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 07:30:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3641829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypsidium/pseuds/Hypsidium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming home is great, but the cleanup is a bitch. During/Post-Casey Jones vs The Underworld.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Order

He had known what they would be walking into, well before they ever re-entered the lair. He had known and the sight of it still squeezed the breath out of his chest and stilled his heart. He swallowed the lump in his throat thickly and stepped gingerly around their pinball machine, avoiding the glass strewn across the floor while Leo paused to caress the metal housing with all the affection one could show a beloved item that held so many memories. Donnie himself had found it and convinced Raph to help him carry it back to the lair, meticulously restoring it. It had been a gift and now it was in pieces on the floor.

It was trashed, utterly and completely. He curled his fingers around the strap of his messenger bag and took a deep, calming breath before proceeding towards their bedrooms opposite the pit, purposely avoiding the lab for the moment. He wasn't ready for that. Not yet. 

Predictably their rooms had been ransacked, but not entirely destroyed. The Kraang had, to his estimation, been seeking out clues as to where they could have gone. They didn't obliterate things for the sheer joy of it, they typically had a reason for whatever wanton destruction they perpetuated. Doors hung at odd angles, having been thrown open in a hurry by robotic bodies, and Mikey's door had been ripped clean in its entirely. He sidestepped the two pieces and entered his own room. The bed had been flipped on its side and the covers were strewn across the floor, but what made him grit his teeth were his books. Most of the left wall had been dominated by a built in bookshelf and every single one of his collection had been swept off the shelves. 

He picked up a copy of A Brief History of Time and ran his fingers down the broken spine in aching reverence. April had given it to him last Christmas and it was one of three books he owned that had been new, not scavenged with ripped pages and stained covers from the dump. He had coveted it, not allowing himself to open it too far lest he crease the spine, and kept it on his top shelf where only he or Splinter could have reached with ease. Far, far out of reach of greasy pizza fingers. He opened the cover and frowned at April's loose, right slanted scrawl wishing him a Merry Christmas. She had written it large, so it covered most of the blank filler page, with wide spacing and big, looping letters. It was a mirrored contrast to his tight, precise handwriting. Years of having sloppy penmanship as a child trying to learn to write properly with only two fingers and a thumb had made him very self conscious. He shut the book and pressed his palm to the cover before seeking out the place on the top shelf it belonged. All his other books were alphabetical, but the top shelf held his most prized pieces and he allowed that slight against comforting order to keep them in a place of honor and safety. 

The remaining few decorative items that he had collected was quickly deemed irreparable and pitched. Two glass cases that had contained some very old insect specimens had been torn out of their housings and pins and felt scraps gathered on the floor. A cheap plaster bank of Einstein's head had been shattered, presumably because it could have potentially held some clue as to their whereabouts. A few other small odds and ends, only valuable for sentimental reasons, but still in too great a state of disrepair to ever be fixed were also set by the door to be taken out. His Venus Flytrap was a lost cause, torn out of her pot - her name was Audrey II thank you very much - and left to wither and die. He swept her gently into what was left of her pot with his hands and put her by his door. It left his top shelf oddly empty, so to fill the space he pulled the music box out of his bag and placed it there. 

He wasn't sure why had kept it, but it seemed important that he should. A physical reminder to prevent him from being so...Something. He worked his jaw, grinding his teeth while he stared at his own handiwork. The mechanism he had found in the attic when they had cleared it out for sleeping space. It had been in a state of disrepair; the humidity from poor insulation had rusted it and the bottom had rotted out. He'd initially set it aside after asking if he could have it, intending to use it for spare parts. Repairing it had been a whim, something that struck him as something he had seen in a romantic movie or two somewhere. It seemed really stupid to base his behaviors on movies now, but initially movies had been their window into the world. Even Leo wasn't immune to it, having modeled himself after Captain Ryan. Everything he had seen had said that this would work - the gifts, the complements, working to save her father (although he'd had few ulterior motives in that, that was just the right thing to do). In every movie he had seen it had played out similarly. Bumbling nerd tries to get the girl, girl goes out with jock, jock degrades nerd, nerd proves his worth through some extraordinary means, girl falls in love with the nerd. He had taken notes and studied how it was done. 

Nothing had prepared him to actually acknowledge that movies weren't a formula he could follow like the notes in a chemistry textbook. Nor had anything prepared him to acknowledge that he had latched onto April like he latched onto a project; with both hands and all of his laser edged focus. With a project this was tiresome if acceptable to his brothers. They understood, they'd known him his entire life and they knew how hard it was to let go of something that had his interest. April was the first time that his focus had been attracted by another person though, and he had turned all of his attention to her as if she were his next creation. He researched what she liked and what she didn't like, what got her to look in his direction, what she was doing in school. It occurred to him that he knew everything about _what_ she was but very little about _who_ she was. 

He was more than a little disgusted with himself.

He had spent so much time being caught up in the giddy, dizzy feeling of being near her that he had allowed himself to devolve his affection to her into something somewhere between a project and being downright - and it took a lot to admit that everyone else was right - _creepy._ He had so wanted to know everything about her, all her ins and outs, that he had neglected to give her the privacy and respect she deserved. He had been so addicted to the feeling of elation he got from being around her that it was downright shameful.

Part of him wished she hadn't kissed him at all, that afternoon at the farmhouse. He really didn't know which way to turn now. Nothing had prepared him for this and he was too ashamed of his previous behavior to go to Sensei about it. Splinter would probably just lecture him anyway or maybe assign extra training to preoccupy him. None of his brothers were as understanding of this as they were of him staying up for three days working on the Shellraiser or any other number of projects that had consumed him. Even those times they had been becoming less and less willing to leave him to his own devices, insisting he eat or at least try and sleep. They _understood,_ but they didn't _get_ that having something to consume him left him without room for the heavy stormclouds that clotted his head most of the time in between projects. April, to him, had been an irrational sun in his rational stormy sky. He had craved her presence like Audrey II had craved flies.

And he had ruined it. He ran a thumb along the edge of the music box before taking it back off the shelf and tearing his photo off the inside of the lid. He tore it into small pieces, until his thick, clumsy fingers couldn't grip them and tear them further. He added the pieces to the pile by the door and made a mental note of the size and dimensions he would require to complete that particular project. April didn't need a reminder that he was infatuated with her. What she needed was a reminder that she was special and wonderful and worthy of praise. And deserved none of the things that had happened to her, least of all his creepiness. He couldn't deny that he still felt a certain affection for her, but he could school himself into allowing her to choose her own way. He was a ninja and he was a scientist, he had better discipline than to devolve again. He sucked in a deep breath and headed out into the common area, dragging his damaged goods behind him.

There was more cleaning to be done.


End file.
